Pangle's Conception of Philosophy
Inspired and guided by Leo Strauss's revival of Platonic political philosophy, Pangle's work has as its unifying aim the clarification and defense of the original Socratic conception of political philosophy. In the manner that Pangle understands it, the Socratic conception is controversial.
What the Socratic conception of political theory amounts to, Pangle contends, is a lifelong vindication, through conversational refutations that purify common sense notions of justice and nobility, of self-knowledge and of inquiry into the nature of things as the highest and supremely fulfilling dimension of human existence. This notion of the true human good, as the good that makes all relativistic and egalitarian outlooks appear impoverished and inauthentic, obviously contradicts or directly clashes with what most people today are told and believe is the life they ought to lead. Pangle asserts that the awakened philosophic life is the only truly human life.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Pangle
Famous quotes containing the words conception and/or philosophy:
“The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“The sun of her [Great Britain] glory is fast descending to the horizon. Her philosophy has crossed the Channel, her freedom the Atlantic, and herself seems passing to that awful dissolution, whose issue is not given human foresight to scan.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)